The Best And Worst Massage Training Of My Life

The Best And Worst Massage Training Of My Life

As a therapist how would you like to be trained?Or how would you train your therapists? Do you receive corporate training? Or do you seek training by your own?

Do you remember the best and the worst course you ever assisted to? I do… and that´s why I am writing this post, in order to review all the MUSTs of a good training course, and all the typical errors to avoid. I am sure that you could add to this list…but let me try to resume the most important aspects in my personal opinion.

THE BEST MASSAGE OR SPA TRAINING SHOULD INCLUDE:

THEORY & PRACTICE. 30-40% of theory and 60-70% of practice. I like to use one quote from HH the Dalai Lama “theory without practice is useless, and practice without theory dangerous”. We must know not only the how, but also the why´s.

POST-TREATMENT RECOMMENDATIONS.The training should also include some lifestyle recommendations, in order to be able to offer our clients some post-treatment advice to follow at home. If we want to be truly effective, the treatment should always be linked to a healthy lifestyle.

INTEGRATION WITH THE SOP. A good training can be easily adapted according to the Spa operations, geography, guest/client profile, etc.

TAILOR-MADE.The massage or beauty technique itself must be possible to adapt according to the clients needs, and in order to do that it is important that the trainer teaches the possible scenarios and how to react to them.

HOLISTIC.I know that many of you will not agree with me on this one, as every time that I mention body, mind, energy, social and natural environment, a lot of people censure me… I am a physical therapist, with a modern medicine background, I know that many of you think that I am bullshitting, but I am not… a Long time ago, I had exactly the same doubts that you have…but life circumstances opened my eyes, and now I can not conceive a treatment without taking all these aspects into account. So when I receive a training, I want to be trained at all levels.

FUN. Many times the trainings are organized trying to fit everything into a few intensive days, during many hours per day, or after work, during the weekends, and so on. This means that the therapists most of the times are exhausted, and sometimes specially if it is a corporate training they might even have very little motivation to attend the class. This is why the training should be fun, using role-play, sense of humor and creating a great team atmosphere.

CONNECTED. As I said before instead of offering just an independent treatment, why not link it with some lifestyle recommendations, why not adapt the treatment according to the clients needs, why not associate the technique with some retail product? Not only for the benefit of your sales and bonus, but also for the benefit of the client.

I am sure that there many more…What are the most important for you in your experience?

THE WORST MASSAGE TRAINING COURSE…

…is the one that vomits the massage technique on you, as fast as possible, and leaves you with all that practical knowledge in the middle of the darkness…without really understanding what you are doing, why your are doing it, when you should or should not do it, and how you should do it in each case. Unfortunately, this type of training is very common nowadays.

Do feel free to share your opinion, but please, always respecting others opinions…the beauty of life is that we all are different…

2 comments

Worst experiences were the ones where the teacher assumed and told us in no uncertain terms that we were incompetent. These were continuing education courses, not basic, but even so, it was demeaning and untrue. Even when I taught at a basic level, I always acknowledged that, while my students were new to massage, they all brought their own unique expertise with them into the training. I valued everyone for how their background would enhance their education.
I have been in several continuing ed courses where the teacher insulted us, berated us, and was borderline abusive. All were teaching amazing, effective work, so I put up with it, but I really felt like they needed to find a different line of work.

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